no title

A look at the facts shows criticism of Obama is valid

Letters Policy

The Dispatch welcomes letters to the editor from readers. Typed letters of 200 words or
fewer are preferred; all might be edited. Each letter must include name, home address and daytime
phone number.
Dispatch.com also posts letters that don't make it to print in
The Dispatch.

FAX

Also in Opinion

Subscribe to The Dispatch

Already a subscriber?
Enroll in EZPay and get a free gift!
Enroll now.

Saturday April 5, 2014 6:00 AM

I respond to last Saturday’s letter by Jim Villella, “Criticism of president ignores facts.” It
reads like all the old talking points in support of this president.

First, he takes the usual progressive approach of claiming any criticism of President Barack
Obama must be a result of some concerted right-wing effort rather than his policies.

I read
The Dispatch every day. While it often is critical of this administration, with very good
reason, I have never read an article or editorial by
Dispatch writers that promotes the tea party as he claimed, other than trying to explain
what members of this movement believe.

Here are some facts about the Obama administration that Villella should consider:

• Well-funded PACs are not unique to conservatives. George Soros, unions and others have spent
heavily on progressive causes for decades.

• It’s not only conservatives saying the minimum-wage increase would cost jobs; it’s business
owners and managers. It just doesn’t make sense, and will actually hurt the poor.

• Maintaining the nation’s credit rating is no accomplishment. That it was almost downgraded is
just one more indication of this administration’s incompetence.

• Deficits are coming down only because Obama had increased them to unprecedented levels. The
sequester and the House’s blocking of Obama’s spending help.

• The stock market is growing despite the poor economy. Interest rates are so low and foreign
markets so poor there is nowhere else to invest that will yield a return.

• Obama could create many jobs (including union-based) instantly, funded 100 percent by the
private sector, by using his pen and phone to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. But he won’t stand
up to a small group of environmental extremists.

• Obama created huge doubts in the business community with Obamacare, a Putin-like annexation of
one-sixth of the economy.

• Obama has given us a $17 trillion national debt, after calling Bush’s $9 trillion “
unpatriotic.”

• Obama’s $870 billion “stimulus” created an alarmingly low number of permanent jobs, instead
saving many public union jobs that will be in jeopardy with the next tax levy.

• The housing market is growing only because it had hit rock bottom. No one can say this is a
robust recovery.

• Congress has opposed Obama’s policies because it sees them as damaging to our economy and too
far down the path of European-style socialism. It’s called “opposition,” and every president deals
with it. Obama allows it to petrify our legislative process.

• Unemployment reductions are due primarily to accounting trickery. We have the lowest
labor-participation rate in many decades.

• Foreign foes and friends alike hold us in lower esteem now than when Obama came to office.

Villella ought to stop watching MSNBC and start reading
The Dispatch or some other credible news source, and he will have a different view of the
facts.